How Charlemagne's Empire Fell

Kings and Generals' historical animated documentary series on medieval history continues with a video on the collapse of Charlemagne's empire. We will focus on the new state created in the place of the Frankish empire after it fell, with explanations of how France, Italy, Germany, and other regions fared.

#Documentary #Charlemagne #Medieval

[kirkvander]

Charlemagne clearly didn't rush Primogeniture inheritance laws in order to preserve his empire.

[teamtwiistz]

Literally the most counter-productive governmental system I've ever heard of.

[Selvionus]

"The Carolingians weren't as good at blinding family members as the Byzantines, and Bernarnd Died"
Byzantines: "Hah, damn amateurs"

[abcdef]

Ottomans seeing the Carolingean Empire getting divided: "This is why we kill princes, when we have too many of them".

[istvansipos]

- He is a great ruler. Something epic must end his reign. A heroic battle, an evil assassin or a...
- A fever.
- yeah... Or a fever.

[masterplokoon]

Carolingians:" Can't properly blind a family member to advance their political agenda"
Empress Irene:" Pathetic"

[johanm_]

Some details that we did not get to cover in the script that you might enjoy:

2:04 : the division envisioned by Charlemagne was as followed:
- his son Louis (the Pious) would get Aquitaine, Spain and Provence,
- Pepin of Italy (father of the blinded Bernard, and not the disinherited Pepin) Italy, Bavaria and Swabia,
- Charles, the eldest son of Charlemagne, got the Imperial title and the rest

Both Charles and Pepin would die before Charlemagne, leaving Louis as the only legitimate heir (there were a few bastard sons, including his first, disinherited son Pepin, and Bernard son of the other Pepin).
-- In the video, when we say "only heirs/sons", we are going to ignore a number of illegitimate sons and daughters for sake of brevity.
3:56 : If you play CK, you might know of the Carolingian branch of Vermandois, this is where they originated from
5:07 : Nicknamed Charles the Bald, he probably was not, in fact, bald, so don't complain that he has hair in his illustration :p
5:32 : The Oaths of Strasbourg is important for linguists as the Oaths were pronounced both in proto-French and proto-German by the two brothers, so both their armies could understand.
8:35 : Lothair II was desperate enough to have the marriage annulled that he gave the Jura (Western Switzerland) to his brother Louis II

[phillip]

When you haven't researched partition in CK3 yet so every son gets an empire.

[sebastianbravo]

Fun fact: The Oaths of Strasbourg (5:34) are a military and honor pact between Louis and Charles, in which they promise to support each other and defeat Lothar. The peculiarity of this is that an early form of romance (derived from vulgar Latin) that would evolve in the French language is attested.

In the words of the scholar Philippe Walter: "This is the oldest extant French text. It is political in nature, not literary, and is important in that it marks the written debut of the 'vulgar' tongue."

[YiannissB.]

“How charlemagne’s empire fell”
Short answer: Charlemagne died...

[deluca]

"The pretty decent king split the crown between his heirs"
"Down drop his head and they started throwing chairs"
"Succession crisis led to civil war"
"And the pretty decent kingdom doomed to be no

[nqh]

Gavelkind partition in a nutshell: so to stop my children from killing each other over inheritance, I’ll give each of them a piece of my realm so that they could wage war with each other instead.

[colink]

I always find it fascinating that a likely unintended affect of Charlemagne conquering the Saxons and destroying them is that he destroyed the one collection of tribes and people that had acted as a buffer state between his realm and this of the Germanic/Viking states, which thus brought on the Viking age, essentially creating all kinds of problems for his sons and heirs.

[mosesracal]

Charles the Fat, is just something I didnt expect to reconquer Carolingian Empire even for a brief time

[Alias_Anybody]

That period is often glossed over in European history classes. The more I learn about 800-900 the more sense it makes that they don't want to open that can of worms, lol.

[animeyahallo]

"What if" scenarios are always in my mind whenever I watch a major historical event like this one.

[marcoslaureano]

Hearing the narrator say "Your balls and your body will thank you", just made my entire afternoon.

[massimopisati]

"Italy went into a period known as the anarchy" which continues to this day

[rkaneproductions]

I’m so impressed on how kings and general’s videos have gotten better and better throughout the years. My favorite channel for history content by far.

[dimitribagatelas]

"your balls and your body, will thank you" dude you killed it lmaooo